Takane & Hana (manga version)

Ha. Okay, so I finally...and I do mean FINALLY finished the Takane & Hana manga series. I started reading it when it first came out and then did a post about it when I tried the live action version back in 2020 (which I didn't wind up watching any more of--Takane was just so wrong.) So...it's been a long time. We finished collecting the books awhile ago but I had to sit and watch kiddo as he took his makeup exams, so I had some reading time and figured it was a good time to finish it up. I went back to volume 9 and then barrelled my way through volume 18 + the extra episode booklet the last volume came with.

Okay. I feel like I have to reiterate again that I'd really not be in favour of this relationship in real life. A 26 year old should not date a 16 year old. Okay, they didn't technically date until it was 27/17, but that's honestly not really any better. And, yes, if it was a 20 year old a 30 year old, that wouldn't be ideal BUT it would be a lot less skeevy. I really really wish she'd written it as Hana at 17 to start and Takane at 25. It'd still be wrong but not AS WRONG. Anyway.

All that said, the author does manage to make it work, possibly partly because Takane has a lot of moments where he is very, very conscious of why this SHOULD NOT BE A GOOD THING. And, as over the top and insane as he is, he does also do his very best to not take advantage. 

But, yeah, in real life, just, NO.

But this isn't real life. It's manga. And the series is very fun. Hana is such a strong character and Takane, for all his posturing, has a good heart. So it all works. 

The last half dealt with a few bit things -- Takane's mom coming back into the picture, for one. She was unexpectedly not as chaebol crazy as one would think. And some "enemies" became, if not exactly friends, at least people that would not actively move against our lovely couple. I did love when they had their New Year's trip to visit Hana's grandparents -- who had been warned ahead of time -- and grandpa wanted to kill Takane...but then they wound up bonding over mochi making. 

The last few volumes were actually very remarkably angst free. There were threats from an aunt, but the grandpa chairman was no threat. When they finally go to tell him, he readily confesses that he knew already. And, seriously, I expected that. He'd have to be blind not to be able to tell that Hana wasn't her sister. She's obviously a high schooler, even when she's all makeup and wig. And he's no idiot. Manipulative, sure, but not an idiot.

But, there were a lot of nice moments once they did officially "get together" and weirdly wound up married before Takane had even had a chance to propose. I'm not going to recap all of it. I'll just say that yes, I'm glad I read this one. I will probably read it again in the future some time. I enjoyed it. The art was good. The side characters were also interesting and fairly well developed (though it's definitely the "Takane and Hana" show). And kudos to the author for taking something inherently skeevy and making it work and getting you to root for them.